To uncover a limiting belief, all you need to do is to look at an area of

your life that is not working for you. Contrary to popular belief, the

circumstances of our lives are a direct reflection of our inner world. Our

beliefs absolutely create our reality. Now at first glance you may think

this is really bad news. You may be thinking that not only do you have

areas in your life that you find challenging, but now you are being told

that it’s your fault! Well, please keep reading because this is actually

very good news. It is not about blame but rather about responsibility.

Think about it this way. If you can take responsibility for the

circumstances of your life (or how you view them) then that means you

have complete control over your experience from moment to moment.

How empowering is that?

What is a belief?

A belief is a personal truth. An idea we have formed about the world

around us that has become a certainty. These beliefs colour and even

create our day to day experience. Just to give you an example of the

profound effect a belief can have on your life, just imagine you are a

woman and you believe all men are liars and cheats. How would this

impact on any romantic relationship you had? Would you be able to

create a close and loving relationship with a man? It’s very doubtful isn’t

it?

Why is a belief so powerful?

To answer this question we must look at the mind and how it works. We

have two minds, our conscious mind and our unconscious mind. The

conscious mind is obviously the mind we are aware of. It is our

conscious awareness. Our unconscious mind is exactly that. It is the part

of our mind that we are unaware of, however, the unconscious mind is a

very powerful driving force. If you think for a moment about learning a

new skill like driving. At first it feels really difficult to do. You have to

remember to look at the road signs, watch out for other vehicles, change

gear at the appropriate time etc. This, at first, seems very confusing and

overwhelming to the learner driver. However, over time and with

practice (repetition) it becomes easier. You no longer have to

consciously think about changing gear, or looking in your mirror. It just

happens automatically. This is because through repetition, the

unconscious mind has learned to take over the role of driving, leaving

your conscious mind free to deal with other items of importance. Your

conscious mind is only capable of dealing with between 7 and 9 items at

any one time, which is why we hand over as much material as possible to

our unconscious mind to deal with. Our unconscious mind is huge and

has recorded in it every detail of every event we have experienced in our

lives. It uses these events, or rather, our interpretation of these events to

keep us safe. The unconscious mind cannot determine right from wrong

and cannot determine a real event from an imagined event. It is like a

giant recorder. It records events together with our interpretation of those

events then treats our interpretation as the truth. This is a very important

fact, which we need to understand when we are dealing with any human

behaviour. It is great when our unconscious mind is fully aligned with

our conscious intent, but when we consciously wish to create more

fulfilling and positive life experiences and our unconscious mind has

previous recordings that go against our current desires, we are driven to

keep experiencing the same life challenges but we can’t understand why.

The good news is, you can uncover and change any unconscious

programming that is stopping you from achieving your goals. Now,

looking again at how these parts of our mind work. The unconscious

mind believes what the conscious mind tells it without question. The

more times the unconscious mind is told something, the more rigid it

becomes in its interpretation. Also, from the information the unconscious

mind receives from the conscious mind, it determines what information is

important to bring to our conscious awareness. If you think about it, we

are constantly bombarded with information in any given moment. There

may be people talking to us, we may be surrounded by furniture or street

signs. There are huge amounts of sensory stimuli, what we see, smell, feel

and hear. In any given moment we are surrounded by about one million

pieces of information, but most of it is of no relevance. Because we

couldn’t cope with this amount of information in each and every moment,

the unconscious mind deletes all the information it deems to be

unimportant. This protects us from going into complete meltdown.

How does the unconscious mind know what is important to us?

This is the crux of the matter. The unconscious mind chooses what to

bring to our conscious awareness from the information it has been given

from the conscious mind in the past. This is where our power to change

lies. Imagine that you believe once again that all men are liars

and cheats. Your unconscious mind would then delete any and all

information to the contrary, so any information that would challenge that

belief would never reach your conscious awareness. From this you

will see that through your belief that all men are liars and cheats, you

have created a world where all men are in fact liars and cheats. In order

to make positive change in your life, you must be prepared to challenge

each and every belief you have that does not serve your best interests.

How do you change a belief?

First you must uncover the beliefs that are keeping you stuck. To do this,

look at any area of your life that is not working perfectly. Lets say for

example you constantly work long hours and this has an impact on your

social life and relationships. What is the belief that drives that

behaviour? Do you believe you have to work hard for a living? Or do

you believe you have to work hard to gain other peoples approval? Once

you uncover the belief/s that are not creating the life you want, you can

start changing them. This may feel uncomfortable at first because to you,

your beliefs are true. This is why you need to open your mind and

challenge them. The best way to do this is to look at your limiting belief

and think of its opposite. So if you think you have to work hard for a

living, you could say to yourself ‘I find work easy and enjoyable’. You

may wonder how this will change your belief. Remember our

unconscious mind believes everything the conscious mind tells it,

especially with repetition. So, if you keep repeating this statement to

yourself, your unconscious mind will start bringing to your attention

anything that supports this new belief thereby slowly reinforcing it until

that becomes your reality. To further quicken and reinforce this process,

you can imagine in detail what it would be like to find work easy and

enjoyable. Imagine what your day would be like, how great it would feel,

what kind of things would you be doing? Imagine all the energy you

would have. This is a great way of creating the life you want because

your unconscious mind cannot determine what is real or imagined, so if

you imagine your life to be just the way you want it, your unconscious

mind will, I guarantee you, support you fully on your journey to create

the life of your dreams. Try it and see.

Author's Bio: 

Sara specialises in facilitating positive change. She is passionate about finding ways to initiate and assist the process of change as quickly and painlessly as possible, eliminating the physical, emotional and behavioural obstacles that stop us living the best life we can.

Often people find it difficult to change either because they don’t know how, or, they know how (they know what they ‘should’ be doing) but seem to be powerless to stop or alter their behaviour or emotional responses. Either way, Sara’s diverse therapeutic training allows her to tailor each session and solution to meet the unique needs of each client.

Prior to training as a Homeopath and Mind Therapist, Sara ran a business in the position of Finance Director. It was her own dissatisfaction with what would appear to the outside world to be a charmed life, that led Sara on her own journey of self discovery that ultimately changed her life in almost every area. It was this experience that prompted her to study the fascinating subject of change and to look for a variety of ways to facilitate change as quickly and painlessly as possible. Often our desire to change is suppressed because we are taught that change is hard, painful and takes time. This does not have to be the case. All change can take place in an instant.

Sara’s thirst for knowledge in this area has given her the opportunity to train with some of the best Therapists in the world. She trained in NLP with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna, Meridian Therapies and Clinical Hypnosis with Alistair Horscroft, Life Coaching Mastery with Michael Neill, and more recently became a certified Personal Trainer using Benjamin Fry's Psychological Coaching method on BBC1's Spendaholics. She also has a diploma in Therapeutic Counselling and is a Homeopath who adheres to the professional code of ethics of The Society of Homeopaths.